Michael Spencer’s Book
Been waiting for a long, long time for this book by the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer. Michael is a long-time online friend of mine.
What you may or may not know is that Michael has had a terrible turn of events in his health. He is fighting cancer. He has pretty much lost his job and needs to raise money to afford COBRA payments to keep his insurance.
So, it would please me a great deal if my readers would pre-order Michael’s book. I’m sure it would be a great encouragment to Michael and his family, as well.
Michael has been extremely influential to me, and if I have had any influence on you, he has too.
Graphic courtesy of my friend Aaron Smith (aka CulturalSavage). By the way, Aaron is a terrific web designer and photographer, and he would love to work for you.
Pen Pal
For some reason, I am thinking and feeling bad about the way I treated my adolescent pen pal.
For you youngsters out there, pen pals constituted the Facebook of my youth. Our internet was with pen and paper and envelopes and airmail stamps. It took longer than today’s internet. But that was the technology we had available to us.
Anyway, I had a pen pal when I was somewhere in the 12-15 age bracket. My pen pal was a girl from Sweden. Her name was Monica Tapper. She lived in Soldatvagen, if memory serves. She was my age.
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Now, about that time in my life I had a super big crush on a Swedish-American actress named Inger Stevens. The Farmer’s Daughter. She was everything an adolescent boy wanted in a woman. I mean, everything. She was the prototypical Swedish blond. Absolutely perfect. It is undoubtedly true that I chose a pen pal from Sweden based on my infatuation with Inger Stevens. It is also undoubtedly true that I had Inger Stevens in my adolescent mind when I wrote and read letters from Monica Tapper. There were several letters back and forth.
Then, Monica Tapper sent me a picture of herself.
Monica Tapper was a beautiful young lady in her own right, but I cannot tell you the depth of my disappointment. Monica Tapper was not blond. Nor did she look in any other way like Inger Stevens. In fact, Monica Tapper looked like a typical American girl, one who could have been in my own class at school. For me, the thrill was gone. I believe I sent one more letter and enclosed my school picture. Neither of us ever wrote again. I suppose Monica Tapper experienced the same letdown that I had experienced.
I was thinking about Monica Tapper this morning. I was lamenting that I did not continue the conversation. My adolescent mind was incapable of looking at the bigger picture and realizing that a friend far away is a valuable thing, to be nurtured. And I was hoping that I did not hurt Monica Tapper’s feelings. Adolescent girls can get their feelings hurt, I understand.
Monica Tapper, if you are out there and happen to stumble across this little post, please accept my apologies. I was a young cretin. There is no excuse.I have not googled your name to try to find you, but perhaps I should.
Today I have friends around the world, friend I have never met. What once was wondrous is now commonplace. I remember the wonder of talking to someone on the other side of the world in real time for the very first time. Now I do it every day and think nothing of it. I would like to reclaim the wonder.
Pen pals are kind of cool, aren’t they?
My Buddy Made the Big Time
I know I posted a link to Michael Spencer’s series on the potential collapse of evangelicalism as we know it. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
The big news is that Michael’s series was picked up by the Christian Science Monitor, and the iMonk is now famous. Then it was multiplied when Matt Drudge picked it up and posted a headline and a link on the Drudge Report. Michael is going to rocket right out of the atmosphere, and good for him.
And it all happened while I was traveling and out of touch with my world, so I’m just now posting about it. I was vaguely aware that this was happening, but didn’t know all the details. Go read it here:
The coming evangelical collapse
Friends
We spent much of the weekend with friends. Friends make the world go round.
Friday evening we were joined at our customary Mexican restaurant by two of our dearest friends. The topic of conversation wasn’t necessarily a pleasant way to start the weekend, but you won’t find better people to spend time with on the face of the earth.
Saturday we had the leadership team from our Bible study group come over for lunch and a planning session. We spent a very pleasant two-and-a-half hours together, eating and talking and laughing. And we actually accomplished something, too.
Saturday evening we met some other friends at Bob Evans for a chat. And food. Sometimes these kind of get-togethers are beneficial to one couple or the other. This time we all benefited.
Sunday we had three young families over to our house for dinner. Carol did a good job with dinner, but the real point was the conversation and the Farkle. I have a real appreciation for the pressure experienced by young families. There are so many competing priorities. I love spending time with young folks who have done a good job establishing their priorities.
Bonding with friends is the essence of the good life.
Superficiality
Maybe I only like this because of my own shallowness, but I don’t think so. I really think JollyBlogger is on to something: Superficiality as the Foundation for Meaningful Relationships
There’s another angle to this that I’ll only mention briefly and that is that if we take ourselves and life very seriously we’ll tend to always be trying to start one of those serious “conversations that matter.” I think we might find that, paradoxically, those who take themselves and their lives less seriously can often go deeper on these matters. Chesterton said:
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity.
Maybe that works for relationships too – relationships fly when they are comfortable with the lighter side of life.
And in conclusion, while writing this post I have finished an Atkins bar, drank a diet pepsi-max, been to the restroom exactly once and had brief conversations with two ladies from the church who are here to straighten some things up.
So, folks, let’s fritter away our time together. I doesn’t have to be heavy to be good.
Maybe I should start using my Twitter account.
Friends Redux
I’m sure you won’t care to watch the whole thing unless you were there. I guess you can if you want to, though.
Friends
We spent the weekend in St. Louis with our oldest and dearest friends. It was a very laid-back weekend. Base of operations was a beautiful old bed and breakfast with fantastic hosts. The settings we enjoyed were perfect, as was the weather. But it was the conversation that made the time together worth the effort and time to make it happen.
We tried to analyze with these three couples have managed to have a close friendship for well over twenty years despite the geographic separations that have taken place. We know it has something to do with honesty and acceptance. Beyond that, it just is.
We will manage, now, to go foward with the momentum that was provided by our weekend together. We will plan another meetup soon, I hope. It needs to be a semiannual event, I think. We all need it. We all need one another.
I have lots of pics and video that won’t mean anything to anyone but the six of us. I plan to make a video collage of the weekend. I’ll probably post it here, but you may not care about it. That’s ok, too.
Get By
Brother Maynard shares about his depression: I Get By With A Little Help…
He is joining a string of bloggers who are making similar revelations — Brant Hansen, RLP, Jason Clark … and, if may humbly add my name to such an illustrious and exalted group of guys, myself.
I don’t wish the condition or the recovery process on anyone, but somehow, it’s good to know I’m not alone.
God bless you, brother.
Vegged Out
Cindy has her garden in. She can do that, since she lives in Alabama. Around here, we’re still getting too cold at night to trust anything that isn’t pretty hardy. 
Jorge’s Fam
Today he sent me a pic of his family. Beautiful. Especially the girls. It’s fantastic that Hannah takes after Maria and not Jorge.
Jorge is from Costa Rica. Maria is from Honduras. Let’s see. That makes the kids … American. Just like Jorge and Maria.
Praying for Jim
Jim has told his story. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) Not the whole story of Jim, of course, but the parts that are troubling him right now.
I’m praying for Jim and his family. I hope you will join me.
Way Back When, Jim Handed Me the Mustard
Back in September we were blessed when Jim stopped by on his way west.
We worshipped together, then had a bite to eat before Jim continued his journey. We enjoyed that day immensely. It isn’t often you get to meet an internet buddy in real life, and Jim is a great guy. The whole family continued with him — virtually — as he drove way out west and then back home.
Well, somehow I forgot to take a decent camera with me when Jim was here. But I did manage to get a couple shots in using Carol’s Treo. The lighting was difficult and the camera is suboptimal, but in a way, the shots came out kind of artsy fartsy.
In the group shot, notice that everyone has a halo except for Craig. I wouldn’t read anything into that.
The high point of the day was when Jim handed me the mustard. Oh yes, he did. We had never even met before, and the guy handed me the mustard.
This day I’m remembering that day.
